The first incident involved an employee hosing down the deck of the Wheketere in December 2023.
The 25-year-old was walking backwards to avoid spray from the wind when she fell 2m into a hatch with no guard cover, The Press reported.
She pulled herself out and went to hospital to get stitches in the back of her head.
"I was knocked unconscious and, when I woke up, I was alone and bleeding from my head," she said.
"I was scared, laying at the bottom of the hatch, wondering if anyone was going to get me."
The court was told the victim suffered "excruciating emotional and physical pain" for some time following the fall, The Press reported.
"I have the same nightmare of me falling in slow motion, where the hatch door is getting smaller," she said in a statement.
After the incident and before she left the job, she said she felt she had been blamed by Whale Watch management.
The other incident in March 2024 involved a worker walking backwards along a gangway to the Wheketere. She fell between the gangway and boat, The Press reported.
She was pulled from the water and sustained a cut to her head.
Judge Lynch read her impact statement: "She remembers thinking she was going to drown when she fell into the water … [and] described being miserable following the incident, not being able to do the things she loved."
The boat was moored during the accident, rather than docked closer to the gangway for passengers. It left a small gap, bridged with a thin steel plank, between the gangway and boat, The Press reported.
Whale Watch procedures had been updated so that refuelling was done while the boat was completely docked, so no gap was left.
Whale Watch's lawyer raised the fact both employees had been walking backwards, but the business had accepted responsibility by its guilty plea.
“They were genuinely upset to read those impact statements and shocked to hear how the victims felt. But they also accepted that was their failing and it shouldn’t have been the first time they were aware of how they were feeling.”
The judge awarded each victim $5000 in reparation and fined Whale Watch $246,500. The company was ordered to pay half of Maritime NZ’s costs, about $13,200.
